Boyfriend is charged in death of woman found in Pinelands

The boyfriend of a Staten Island woman found buried in the Pine Barrens last week has been brought to New Jersey to face charges in connection with her death, authorities said.

Thomas Paolino, 19, of Staten Island, was arrested late Friday night and charged with desecration of a human body after New Jersey State Police found evidence linking him to the body of his girlfriend, 19-year-old Jessica Tush, said State Police Sgt. Stephen Jones.

Tush, a 2006 graduate of Staten Island's Susan Wagner High School, was last seen Wednesday at the BCBG clothing store in the Staten Island Mall, where she had worked for several months. She had told her parents she was going to a friend's wake later that afternoon but apparently never arrived at the funeral home. Her parents reported her missing the next day.

On Thursday morning, two people walking a dog through an isolated swath of state parkland in Bass River Township, Burlington County, came across "something suspicious" and phoned State Police, Jones said. Troopers arrived to discover a young female body, buried in a shallow, freshly dug grave amid the South Jersey pines. The body was later identified as the missing Staten Island teen.

An autopsy was conducted, and on Friday Tush's death was ruled a homicide by the Burlington County medical examiner. The cause of death has not been disclosed by authorities, but several reports have said she was strangled.

Paolino, who reportedly dated Tush for most of the past year, was brought into a Staten Island precinct house for questioning Friday by New York authorities. Later that night, members of the State Police Major Crimes Unit traveled across the river to arrest him, after detectives found evidence linking him to the body, Jones said.

Police would not say what evidence led to the charge against Paolino, but Jones said the State Police executed several search warrants in New Jersey before making the arrest.

An extradition hearing was scheduled for yesterday morning, but Paolino waived his extradition rights and was turned over to State Police. He was on his way to a South Jersey jail yesterday afternoon, Jones said.

Paolino has not been charged with murder, and the investigation into Tush's death and disappearance continues.